During the earnings conference** in early February, Apple CEO Tim Cook mentioned the company's continued investment in AI technology and said he plans to share details of his work in this area later this year. This has sparked anticipation among iPhone experts for the upcoming release of iOS 18, which many believe could be one of the biggest updates in the history of Apple's mobile operating system. Meanwhile, Samsung has entered the competition in the field of mobile AI with the launch of its latest Galaxy S24 series of smartphones. They use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, which is packed with powerful artificial intelligence enhancements. Apple is also working to enhance the AI computing performance of mobile devices and plans to increase the computing power of its own processors.
Apple is reportedly working on next-generation processors that will have significantly upgraded Neural Engine performance and additional cores. According to people familiar with the matter, Apple plans to enhance the AI computing power of the existing M3 and A17 processors in 2024 and launch a new generation of M4 and Bionic A18 chipsets, which will add more AI computing cores. Apple works closely with TSMC and expects a significant increase in wafer production for TSMC's 3nm enhanced version process this year.
This time Apple plans to introduce a massive hardware upgrade in the iPhone 16 to support the AI leap it will make in 2024. Apple is expected to launch its latest iPhone in September, with a major AI upgrade from iOS 18. To support these changes, Apple's iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks will undergo a major upgrade with a new generation of M4 and A18 processors, which will increase the number of built-in AI compute cores. Apple will significantly enhance the AI computing power of the M3 and A17 processors, and the new generation of M4 and A18 processors will significantly increase the number and performance to power the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro models.
At the heart of Apple's AI capabilities is the Neural Engine, which is 2x faster in the A17 Pro chip, powering auto-correction, computational photography, and personal voice capabilities, among other things. The M3, M3 Pro, and M3 MAX series will also continue to emphasize the performance enhancement of the Neural Engine. Although Apple already has powerful AI hardware, they plan to take it even further with the iPhone 16 and M4 Mac series.